Where’d ya get dem apples?

I was cleaning out my car the other day, and found a McDonald’s apple slice. I know the apple slice was from McDonald’s because I cannot cut it that perfectly, as I have a tendency to put my knives in the dishwasher.

Knives in dishwasher = Dull knives

Then it occurred to me, umm, the last time we went to McDonald’s was 2 days ago. Why is this apple slice not brown? Even if I put lemon juice on my cut apples they never, NOT, have any browning, especially after two whole days?!

I discussed this with my other Mom friends, and they too were curious as to why McDonald’s slices do not turn brown. I checked the ingredients and all that it said was: Apples, calcium ascorbate. I know that they put ascorbic in fruit cups and baby food. But isn’t calcium ascorbate just vitamin C? Well that is what the internet told me, but I still wondered.

Then as a MCQ correspondent, I had the opportunity to visit Pride Pak where McDonald’s non-browning apple slices and other produce for McDonald’s comes from. I learned first-hand that ascorbate is just vitamin C and that actually this is even better than most due to the added calcium. They plunge the apples completely in it, so that is why you never see any browning. I followed the whole process from apple, to packaging of the apple slices, and there were no hidden extras.

Phew! Apples are just apples Moms!

Now if we can only coordinate a way that we can get apple slices with the regular meals. Many times I have ordered the apple slices for myself, I am charged, even if I don’t want the fries. Sometimes I get sneaky and order the apples for the kids and give them my fries, but of course the kids want the apples too!

I have even gone out of my way to go to certain McDonald’s so I can get the apples slices because some of the restaurants will not charge you, while others do. Personally, I think that if you want the apple slices instead of the fries that McDonald’s should not charge you, they do not charge you if you exchange them on the kids meals. Why do they charge you on the other meals, when clearly the other meals have larger sized fries than the kids’ meals?! Hasn’t McDonald’s learned that children learn by what their parent’s model? So in other words, please don’t charge me!